Columns

Slated improvements to the Bradner and Peterson reservoirs will not increase our water storage capacity, but will greatly improve our water storage capability.

That may sound like a contradiction, but it’s really just a reflection of a dilemma inherent in capturing river water.

The problem with large rain events and spring runoff is that the high volume of water rushing into the Gallinas carries a lot of dirt and debris with it, so much that the water is not immediately usable. So when the water flow is at its best, the water quality is at its worst.

Are you present in the life you live? Or are you somewhere else? Are you living in the past? The future? Are you showing up for life? Life has no dress rehearsal. Life is here now and then it is gone.

Sometimes I think we miss out on life because it moves too quick. We are chasing something we can never really catch. We let anticipation of tomorrow keep us from accomplishing what we need to today. We worry about something that may happen on the road ahead. It robs us of today.

Compiled by The Associated Press
The Arizona Republic on endorsing Hillary Clinton for president (Sept. 27):

Since The Arizona Republic began publication in 1890, we have never endorsed a Democrat over a Republican for president. Never. This reflects a deep philosophical appreciation for conservative ideals and Republican principles.
This year is different.
The 2016 Republican candidate is not conservative and he is not qualified.

There are only two kinds of people in the world: those who use the Oxford comma, and those who don’t. I’m not a willing user, even to the peril of a lowered grade in school.

An instructor we suffered through in the Dark Ages at Highlands University laid out some arcane rules we were to follow in doing our homework. One was that we use the serial (or Oxford or Harvard) comma whenever necessary. “It looks neater,” she said.

Considerable taxpayer dollars were awarded by the City in the past to local non-profit groups. Many of the groups had overlapping missions, (e.g., economic development or tourism.) The specific, measurable results which that money was supposed to produce were sometimes soft services rather than hard deliverables, and the outcomes were not always well-documented or even well-defined.

Take a deep breath, I tell myself, it’s only campaign hyperbole. We’ve witnessed election-year spin over and over through the years.

But last week’s remarks by Donald Trump are breathtaking in its intended deception. It turns out, Trump declared after years of fanning the flames of the “birther controversy,” that President Barack Obama was born in the U.S. after all.

Remember when a nickel would buy us a candy bar or a bottle of pop? And even a penny amounted to something when inserted into a gumball machine. I recall that the Coke machine in the mechanics’ area at B.M. Werley Auto Company, the Ford dealership on Grand and University, got rid of possibly the last nickel pop machine in town, charging a dime for the “new and improved” product.

And the jerks that replaced the machine didn’t even provide a bottle larger than the six-ounce drink we received.

What is the best advice you have ever been given? Is this a hard question to answer with the single biggest piece of advice you have ever been given or are there several pieces of advice that come to your mind that you think are equally valuable?

Do you take advice well? Or put another way, do you receive other’s wisdom openly?